Last week marked our final Walking Prayer gathering at Walden Pond … for now anyway.  What a blessing it has been to observe the seasonal changes throughout the year – both in nature and in our lives.   We have drawn closer to our own hearts, to God, and to one another, as we’ve carried one another’s burdens and shared in each other’s joys.

“They say that beauty comes from a spirit that has weathered many hardships in life and somehow continues with resilience.  Grace can be found in a soul who ages softly, even amid the tempest.  I think the loveliest by far is the one whose gentle heart bears a hundred scars from caring, yet still finds a way to pick up the lamp, one more time, to light the way for love.”    

                                                                         – from Open Passages by Susan Frybort

We most recently watched spring finally arrive at the pond, to be followed quickly by signs of summer.  All along, this place has become a “graced oasis” for us – to borrow a term from Miriam Therese Winter who writes:

“Drink, drink deep, let it all sink in to the well of your remembering and the spell of your imagining, against the day after day after day, devoid of time to sit and pray, when your heart is up against the wall, your thirsting spirit will recall what a blessing so much time and space is, and return you to this graced oasis.”

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